Building on previous disaster research,
this paper presents and analyzes the May 1996 Mount Everest climbing
disaster. Using a blend of psychodynamic
and structuralist theory, the paper demonstrates how historical changes in the
field of high altitude climbing fostered the emergence of pathologically
narcissistic, competitive, and regressive dynamics that ultimately contributed
to numerous climbing deaths.

The authors thank Paul Carlile, Pushi
Prasad, Les Schaffer, Mary Zalesny, and several anonymous reviewers for their
helpful comments in the development of this paper. We also thank Clayton Alderfer for his
patient and constructive feedback throughout the review process.

Deliverance,
Denial, and the Death Zone: A Study of Narcissism

And Regression in
the May 1996 Everest Climbing Disaster

INTRODUCTION

The last decade has seen organizational
scholars taking a lively interest in disaster theory, particularly as
organizations become increasingly capable of inflicting unprecedented levels of
harm on society and the environment (e.g., Perrow, 1984; Shrivastava, 1987;
Pauchant & Mitroff, 1992; Gephart, 1993; Hynes & Prasad, 1997).
Explanations for disaster have often been either psychological, such as a
collapse in sensemaking (Weick, 1993), or structural, such as Perrow’s (1984)
typology of system complexity and coupling. Here, following Bourdieu’s
micro/macro analytic precedents (cf. Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), we combine
these two broad camps to create a more contextualized (and hopefully more
comprehensive) way of thinking about disasters – disasters are seen to result
from the interaction of particular psychological and sociostructural
dynamics.

From the psychological side, we draw
from narcissism theory, a body of thought which has proven well suited for
explaining the motivational sides of disaster.
For example, in his analysis of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster,
Schwartz (1990) compellingly attributes the fatal launch decision to NASA
officials and employees’ unquestioning belief in the infallibility of the
organization and its leaders. Also from a psychodynamic perspective, Kernberg
(1985) and Kets de Vries (1984, 1991) have studied narcissism in leadership and
its impact on performance. Kernberg
(1985) has characterized narcissistic leaders by their “excessive self reference
and self centeredness; … grandiosity and overvaluation of themselves exist
together with feelings of inferiority; (they) are overdependent on external
admiration, emotionally shallow, intensely envious, and both depreciatory and
exploitative in their relations with others” (p. 101). Kets de Vries’ (1991) also has discussed how
CEO’s are often affected by narcissistically-based transference reactions and
how that can lead them to lose “touch with reality” based on a belief that they
are “special” and have “a license to do anything” (128).

By
definition, narcissistic individuals depend on an audience to validate their
self-worth (Lasch, 1978). However,
narcissism is fundamentally intrapsychic, reflecting a structure of self that
is either well developed or deficient.
Healthy narcissism or positive self-regard (Pauchant, 1987) is,
according to Pulver (1970), “high self-esteem based on predominantly
pleasurable affect self-representation linkages” (336). It is characterized by the ability to feel
positive about oneself, confident and capable.
Unhealthy narcissism or self-inflation (Pauchant, 1987) is
“self-centeredness or apparent high regard for oneself utilized as a defense
against underlying unpleasurable linkages”(336). According to Jacoby (1990), self-inflation is
based on “the overcompensation of inferiority complexes and the accompanying
fear of self-depreciating life situations…accompanied by the so-called
‘narcissistic vulnerability’, the tendency to register with oversensitive
antennae the least sign of challenge to one’s self esteem and to react with
distress (83).” The self-inflated
narcissist seeks validation from others to compensate for feelings of impotence
and failure; ironically, when validation does arrive, the reaction may be
shame, a sense of not being worthy of it (Jacoby, 1990).

Narcissism within psychoanalytic and
object relations theory has historically been discussed in terms of inadequate
mothering. According to Kohut, the
mother as “selfobject” has two important functions in the development of a
healthy structure of self. The first is
to confirm the infant’s innate sense of vigor and perfection (mirror
transference function); the other is to be someone with whom the infant can
merge, thereby idealizing the parent and internalizing a sense of “calmness, infallibility, and perfection”
(idealization transference function) (Pauchant, 1987: 125). These two functions reflect the poles of
grandiosity and idealization and create a tension gradient that must be held in
balance if the child is to develop a healthy structure of self.

If the selfobject lacks empathy or
interacts with the infant to meet his or her own needs rather than those of the
infant, the child may experience a void at either or both of these poles and be
forced to develop defensive and compensatory structures. For example, if neither parent ever confirms
the child, the child as an adult may feel compelled to make “solipsistic claims
for attention” (Kohut, 1971: 9) as a way to compensate for the absence of an adoring
parent. Likewise, if neither parent is
one with whom the child can easily merge or idealize, the person may compensate
by compulsively seeking out other powerful objects (for example, ideological
movements, high risk activities, or charismatic individuals) with whom they can
try to merge (Kohut, 1971). For this
reason, the development of an unhealthy structure of self represents a failure
in the “emancipation from the self-object” (Jacoby, 1990: 68).

According to Kohut (1971), narcissistic
disorders manifest themselves in a variety of ways: difficulty forming
significant relationships, work inhibitions, a lack of humor, difficulty
empathizing with others’ feelings, and a tendency towards periods of
uncontrolled rage when feeling slighted (23).
Brown’s (1997) list of the defense mechanisms by which narcissists
manage threats to their fragile ego includes denying limitations and
vulnerabilities, rationalizingunacceptable
behavior and feelings, overestimating abilities and accomplishments, and
offering consistently self-serving explanations for successes and failures
(Brown, 1997: 646-647). Though
attribution theory suggests that many people use these defenses regularly,
self-inflated narcissists feel compelled to use them more often and under
circumstances that many would not regard as ego-threatening.

In this paper, we attempt to create a
bridge between these psychodynamic views and more structuralist perspectives to
explain organizational disaster. Specifically, we show how high levels of self-inflated narcissism
interact with organizational history, environment, and other contextual
variables to foster regressive work group cultures. Following Brown’s (1997) recent call for
“in-depth, inductively derived case studies” (671) to examine the role of
narcissism in organizational life, we focus on the May 1996 tragedy on Mount
Everest. We discuss how the
commodification of high altitude climbing significantly influenced:

·The roles,
responsibilities, and motivations of leaders.
Before adventure climbing became popular, expedition leaders were highly
skilled generalists – ‘first among
equals’ – who provided expert climbers with a plan, resources, and
collaborative decision support. As
adventure climbing entrepreneurs, however, they had to be technical/logistical
experts and business people who needed publicity to attract well-paying
clients and who had to cater to the needs of clients in a way that was
physically and emotionally exhausting.

·The profile of
climbers. Compared to climbers before adventure
climbing, the climbing skills of high altitude adventure climbers had
decreased, as their level of narcissism had become less healthy.

Combined,
these two elements caused a shift in the work group cultures of high altitude
climbing teams, from more collaborative, high learning, intentional group
cultures (Diamond, 1991) to more regressive, low learning, dependent group
cultures. Particularly on this disaster,
competition for clients through an emphasis on publicity and service (that is,
getting clients to the top) had also increased greatly.

Our research is based entirely on
archival data, articles, transcripts of taped interviews, video accounts, and
copies of roundtable internet discussions, collected before, during, and after
the disaster occurred. Two important
sources are John Krakauer’s (1997) best-selling book, Into Thin Air, and Anatoli Boukreev (Scott Fischer’s
lead guide) and G. Weston DeWalt’s (1997), The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on
Everest, which in part rebuts
Krakauer’s criticisms of Boukreev for guiding without the use of oxygen and
descending before Fischer’s clients had returned safely to Base Camp. Given
that our account is based on retrospective accounts of guides and clients
relying on memory, having survived a nightmarish tragedy, having different
stakes in what story is told, and suffering from various degrees of hypoxia
(oxygen deprivation typical of high altitude climbing which impairs a climber’s
ability to think or reason), we believe that telling the ‘one, true story’ – assuming that this is ever
possible – is particularly difficult in this case. In fact, in a subsequent posting to an
Everest chat-line, Krakauer agreed commenting:

“I find your hunger for facts – your
powerful desire to find out what really happened on Everest – heartening and
noble. But as some of you have
discovered, the truth is extremely elusive, even when people are not
intentionally lying or covering up.
Memory, I found, is extremely unreliable above 8000 meters, due to
hypoxia and exhaustion. I was up there,
and I’ve made an effort to repeatedly interview most of the other climbers who
were up there, yet I remain unclear about many key points. It’s especially difficult to determine the
truth from rumor and innuendo and second-hand information” (Krakauer, 1996b).

Nevertheless, the many journalists,
clients, and guides who are the sources for this article worked very hard to
put forth an accurate story. Between the publication of his Outside
magazine account in September of 1996 and the publication of Into Thin Air
in 1997, for example, John
Krakauer corrected several mistakes in his original story and tried to examine
his own culpability in the disaster. In
his Outside article, Krakauer wrote that during his descent just above
Camp Four, he had spoken with guide, Andy Harris, and seen him return safely to
Camp Four. When Krakauer realized that
Harris was not at Camp Four, he assumed (and subsequently wrote in Outside)
that he had walked off the mountain to his death. Only later, in checking his story with other
climbers, did Krakauer learn that the person he had spoken to above Camp Four
was not Andy Harris but one of Scott Fischer’s clients, Martin Adams.
Upon discovering his mistake, Krakauer (1997) wrote in his book:

I was stunned. For two months I’d been telling people that
Harris had walked off the edge of the South Col to his death, when he hadn’t
done that at all. My error had greatly
and unnecessarily compounded the pain of (his friends and relatives). Andy was a large man, over six feet tall and
200 pounds, who spoke with a sharp Kiwi lilt; Martin was at least six inches
shorter, weighed maybe 130 pounds, and spoke with a thick Texas drawl. How had I made such an egregious
mistake? Was I really so debilitated
that I had stared into the face of a near stranger and mistaken him for a
friend with whom I’d spent the previous six weeks?

In summary, given considerable
convergence among several carefully prepared and well-researched accounts from
Krakauer, Boukreev, and other clients and guides, we believe that the story we
present below offers a more-or-less accurate account of events that took place
during this disaster episode.

REACHING
FOR THE TOP

Because of a brief window of good
weather favorable to high-altitude climbing, the first two weeks of May are a
popular time of year to climb Mount Everest in the Himalayas of Nepal. At 5 PM on May 9, 1996, three teams of
climbers and their Sherpas (people of the Darjeeling region of Nepal who, for
most of the 20th century, have been employed on Himalayan climbing
expeditions as high altitude porters) began arriving at Camp Four. Camp Four was located at the bottom of the
South Col on the slopes of Everest, approximately 26,100 ft. above sea
level. Krakauer (1996a) described Camp
Four as “one of the most inhospitable places I’ve ever been” (57). It consisted of “strips of shredded tents, discarded
bright-yellow, green, and red oxygen tanks, spent batteries, empty raisin
boxes, and Powerbar wrappers (and) a skeleton or two lying about on the loose
shale still zipped into down suits” (Wilkinson, 1996: 39-40). Among Everest climbers, Camp Four is also
regarded as the beginning of the “Death Zone,” the point at which climbers
become most susceptible to carelessness, sluggishness, and even death because
of severe oxygen deprivation.

-------------- Table One About Here
----------------

Rob
Hall, a New Zealander and owner and founder of Adventure Consultants, led one
of the three teams. Hall was an
extremely competent climber who had ascended Everest four times himself and who
took a conservative approach to guiding; he was known not to “cut his clients a lot of slack”
(Wilkinson, 1996: 39). With him
on this climb were guides, Mike Groom and Andy Harris, and clients, Doug Hansen
(a postal worker who had failed to reach the top in an attempt the previous
year), Yasuko Namba (who was trying to be the second Japanese woman to climb
the summits of all seven continents), Beck Weathers (a surgeon from Dallas),
John Krakauer (a rock climber and journalist who was planning to write an article
for Outsidemagazine), and
four other clients. Hall’s head Sherpa
or climbing sirdar was Ang Dorje (referred to in this paper as Ang). Hall had ten other Sherpas and a Base Camp
manager and doctor as well.

A
second team was led by Scott Fischer, a highly-respected American climber and
owner of Mountain Madness, an adventure guiding business in Seattle. Fischer was leading his first commercial
Everest climb and believed in giving his clients considerable freedom in how
they chose to ascend the mountain. His
guides included Neil Beidleman and Anatoli Boukreev (one of the strongest high
altitude climbers in the world who regularly climbed above 8000 meters without
supplementary oxygen). His clients were
Sandy Hill Pittman (wealthy New York socialite, journalist, and adventurer who
had negotiated an agreement with NBC to post daily reports on the team’s
progress for NBC Interactive Media),

Lene Gammelgaard (trying to be the first Scandinavian woman to top
Everest), Klev Schoening, Charlotte Fox, Tim Madsen, and Martin
Adams. Fischer’s climbing sirdar was
Lopsang Jangbu (referred to as “Lopsang”).
He had nine other Sherpas and a team doctor as well. A non-climbing member of the team, Jane
Bromet, had come to provide daily reports for OutsideOnline (affiliated
with but different from Outsidemagazine).
According to Boukreev and DeWalt (1997), Bromet was invited because she was considered “loyal and
could be counted on to maintain the company line” – something they were not
certain that Pittman would do.

A third, “unguided” Taiwanese team was
led by Makalu Gau
and consisted of one other climber and three Sherpas. They had agreed not to climb on May 10, the
climbing date that Hall and Fischer had reserved through negotiations with
expedition guides and leaders, including Gau.

Arriving
at Camp Four in a howling snowstorm, climbers got into their tents, sipped tea,
and rested in their sleeping bags fully dressed and ready to begin their ascent
late that night. Given the raging storm,
Boukreev and several clients thought that trying to summit that night was a bad
idea (Boukreev and DeWalt, 1997:147) and that a return to Camp Three was in
order. In the adventure system, however,
the final decision was Hall and Fischer’s to make, and they were inclined to
wait and see if the weather cleared.

Somewhere
between 7 and 10 PM that evening, the sky did clear, the wind stopped, and the
temperature became an ideal 15F below 0.
Near midnight, Hall’s
team departed for the top, followed thirty minutes later by Fischer’s. According to retrospective accounts, some members of Fischer’s team were
upset at being behind Hall’s team whom they considered to be “old…and slow” and
believed this cost their team “a couple of hours on the ascent” (Boukreev and
DeWalt, 1997:153). Departing immediately
after Fischer and ignoring the agreement not to climb were Gau and his team.

By 7:10 AM the next morning, Hall’s
entire team had reached the Balcony at 27,800 ft. One of Hall’s clients, Jon Krakauer, had been
there since 5:30 AM. (Hall had instructed his clients to remain at the Balcony
until all of his clients had arrived.) During his long
wait, Krakauer watched as Fischer’s group and the Taiwanese team passed him.
Once Krakauer began climbing again, he noticed that Fischer’s lead Sherpa, Lopsang, was vomiting in the
snow. He and the guide, Boukreev, were climbing without
supplemental oxygen – a questionable practice for any guide at high altitudes,
according to Krakauer11.
He also noticed that Lopsang
was “short-roping” (or pulling by rope) Sandy Hill Pittman up the mountain that
morning. Fischer had given permission to
Lopsang and Boukreev to climb without supplemental oxygen and was apparently
aware that Lopsang was short-roping Pittman.
As head Sherpa for Fischer’s group, Lopsang was supposed to have been at
the front of the group, putting in the route and fixing ropes higher up the
mountain. In fact, he and Hall’s head
Sherpa, Ang, were supposed to have left 90 minutes before Hall’s group the
night before to fix all the necessary ropes.

Because
the Sherpas had not set up the route as expected, several costly bottlenecks
ensued along the trail. When Krakauer
and Ang reached a point near the Balcony where Ang could have fixed ropes alone, he refused to do
so, arguing that he was doing more than his share of the Sherpa work (Lopsang
had fallen well behind while short-roping Pittman) (Krakauer, 1996a:
59). Although Fischer’s guide,
Beidleman, was able to fill in for Lopsang, the delay used up almost an hour of
time and created the first
of two bottlenecks on the route.
By about 11:30 A.M.,
there was still a long line of climbers waiting to use these fixed ropes. At this point, three ofHall’s clients made the decision to turn back joining a
fourth who had turned back earlier – a good decision, in retrospect.

A
second bottleneck and delay occurred further up the mountain at the South
Summit. Again, ropes were supposed to
have been fixed there across a hazardous ridge up to the Hillary Step – a rock face 40
feet high that is just below the summit.
At about 11 A.M., Krakauer reports that he, Harris, Beidleman, and
Boukreev were waiting near the South Summit for Lopsang and Ang to arrive and
fix ropes. They waited in an “hypoxic stupor” for almost an hour,
before realizing that Ang and another of Hall’s Sherpas were sitting right next
to them. Again, however, Ang refused to fix the ropes at
this location (apparently, for the same reason as before) (Krakauer, 1996a: 60). Because it was almost noon, the four of them realized they would
have to fix the ropes themselves.
Lacking enough rope, they had to leave a 100 meter stretch of dangerous
snow ridge without fixed lines.

By about 1:15 PM, Boukreev, Krakauer,
Harris, and Beidleman finally reached the summit. A bank of storm clouds was gathering in the
near distance. Except for Beidleman, who
waited until about 3 PM for Scott Fischer and other clients to reach the top
(indicating later that he did not feel that it was right to leave “until
everybody had reached the summit. They
were so close” (Boukreev and DeWalt, 1997: 176)), Krakauer, Boukreev, and
Harris took a few pictures and headed back down. However, just as
they were about to descend the fixed ropes at the Hillary Step, they
encountered a queue of 20 climbers at the base of the Step waiting to climb
up. Krakauer notes that he had to unclip
himself and wait with Harris while the others ascended.

At
about 2:30 PM, sensing that the ascent was going slowly and client oxygen
supplies were running low, Boukreev got permission from Fischer to “descend as
quickly as possible to Camp Four” in order to warm himself and “gather a supply
of hot drink and oxygen in the event that (he) might need to go back up the
mountain and assist descending clients” (Boukreev and DeWalt, 1997: 248-249).
With that in mind, Boukreev did not wait for the ascending climbers at the
Hillary Step and moved quickly down the fixed ropes on his way back to Camp
Four.

At this point in time, it was late in
the day for climbers to be just arriving at the Hillary Step. Many were either on their third bottle of oxygen or, like Krakauer, were
running out and waiting to get a refill down at the South Summit. While Krakauer waited and watched climbers
ascend, he noticed that the first clients to come up were all from Fischer’s
group. At the back of the queue were
Hall, Namba, and Doug Hansen. Hansen in particular appeared to
be struggling. When Krakauer saw
Hall, he thanked him for helping him reach the top to which Hall replied, “Yeah, it’s turned out to be a
pretty good expedition. I only wish we
could have gotten more clients to the top” (Krakauer, 1996a: 60). To Krakauer (1997), “It was obvious that Hall was profoundly
disappointed that five of his eight clients had packed it in – a sentiment that
I suspected was heightened by the fact that Fischer’s entire crew appeared to
be plugging toward the summit” (187).

The last person to reach the top of the
Hillary Step was Scott Fischer, who was also moving slowly. As the person designated to “sweep” struggling
clients from behind, Fischer himself had struggled all day. Yet, when asked how he was doing, Fischer
replied, “Just dragging
ass a little today for some reason. No
big deal,” (Krakauer, 1996a: 50).
Even though Fischer was in serious trouble, others – knowing him as a strong and capable
climber – seemed oblivious to it.
At about 3:20 PM Hansen finally did reach the summit, almost an hour
after Hall’s arrival (and almost 90 minutes after the 2PM turnaround
time). Short-roping Hansen, Hall began
descending as weather conditions started to deteriorate. Fischer, Lopsang, and possibly Gau also
started down at about the same time.

At the South Summit, Fischer started to have trouble
standing, and Lopsang began to short-rope him to keep him from falling. At about 4:30 PM, Hall and Hansen reached the
top of the Hillary Step where Hansen collapsed and Hall, out of oxygen, radioed
for help. Fischer and Lopsang passed them soon after.

At dusk, the wind grew stronger, the
clouds rose up, and snow started to fall.
Krakauer states, “The weather had deteriorated into a full-scale
blizzard. Snow pellets born on 70
mile-per-hour winds stung my face; any exposed skin was instantly frozen”
(Krakauer, 1996a: 62). It was imperative
that everyone return to Camp Four as quickly as possible in order not to be
stranded outside in the darkness, wind, and cold. By 6 PM, Krakauer reached Camp Four alone and fell into his tent, cold
and exhausted. Boukreev – who was the
first of the successful climbers to return to Camp Four at 4:30 PM – had
started back up the mountain with four oxygen bottles. However, walking out into near zero
visibility and not knowing anyone’s location, he soon turned around and abandoned the first of several
rescue attempts.

The
merge

By 8 PM on May 10, a large, mixed group
of descending guides (Groom, Biedleman), clients (Namba, Weathers, Madsen, Fox,
Pittman, Schoening, and Gammelgaard, Pittman), and Sherpas reached the South
Col in complete darkness and hurricane force winds and snow. Only a few lamps worked and visibility was near zero. For the next two hours, they “staggered
blindly around in the storm, growing ever more exhausted and hypothermic,
hoping to blunder across the camp” (Krakauer, 1996a: 64). The noise was deafening, and at one point
they almost walked off the mountain face.
Beidleman decided to stay in one spot and hope that the weather would
break. To keep from falling asleep, those with more strength took
turns hitting and punching the weaker ones.
Groom radioed base camp that they were hopelessly lost.

After
a lucky break in the weather in which stars became visible and their position
more discernible, Beidleman decided to set off with Schoening, Gammelgaard, and
Groom, who were ambulatory, to find Camp Four and bring back a rescue team. It took Beidleman and the others about 15 minutes to find Boukreev at Camp
Four. With directions and after two tries, Boukreev was finally able to find
the others.

In his first trip, Boukreev gave a bottle of oxygen to
Pittman and Madsen to share and carried Fox, who was in reasonably good
condition, back to her tent on his back.
It took him almost an hour to reach Camp Four (Dowling, 1996: 40). At around 4 or 5 AM on May 11, he returned to
carry and drag Pittman down as Madsen followed behind. Boukreev believed that Namba was dead, or
close to it, and did not see Weathers, who had been blown a short distance away
from the group and was partially covered in snow. Later that morning, a search team discovered that both Weathers
and Namba were still barely alive. They
decided not to try to carry them down believing that they would “almost
certainly die before they could be carried down to Base Camp” (Krakauer, 1996a:
160).

Also alive on the morning of May 11 were
Hall, Fischer, Lopsang, and Gau. Since 4:30 PM the previous afternoon, Hall had spent 12 hours trying
to get Hansen down the Hillary Step to the South Summit so they could resupply
their oxygen. But Hansen had collapsed completely. Despite repeated urgings from a close friend
to save himself, Hall refused to abandon Hansen on the mountain. Somewhere below the Hillary Step, however,
Hansen apparently slipped
and fell to his death. Not until
4:30 AM the next day, May 11, did Hall, “badly frostbitten and
hypothermic”(Krakauer, 1996a: 55), finally make it down to the South
Summit. By 8:30 AM, Hall was able to find some oxygen and started
talking about descending. A rescue
attempt was made but failed because of more bad weather. Throughout the day, friends implored him to try
to come down. At one point he sounded
annoyed: “Look, if I
thought I could manage the knots on the fixed rope with me frostbitten hand, I
would have gone down six hours ago” (Krakauer, 1996a: 159). Krakauer notes that, “It was amazing that
Hall was even alive after spending a night without shelter or oxygen at 28,700
feet in hurricane force wind and minus 100 degree wind-chill” (Krakauer, 1996a:
158). Finally, at 6:20 PM on May 11, he
was patched through to his pregnant wife in New Zealand a final time and said
goodbye. It was the last he was heard
from.

Scott Fischer also died on May 11. On the night of May 10 at 1200 feet above the
South Col, Lopsang found
that he was no longer able to short-rope Fischer down the mountain. Just as he was about to leave him, three
other Sherpas showed up carrying Makalu Gau. At about 10 PM they tied the two semiconscious men together and started
down for help. When Lopsang
reached Camp Four, he tried to get Boukreev to assist Fischer, but Boukreev was
busy trying to save the stranded Mountain Madness clients on the South Col.
Once he had completed that task, however, Boukreev was too exhausted to try rescuing Fischer and
hoped that, “because he is a guide,” Fischer would “survive much better than
these clients” (Boukreev and DeWalt, 1997: 226). The next
day between 10 AM and 1 PM, Sherpas found Fischer and Gau barely alive. They decided that Gau had the better chance
of survival and helped him down. At 7 PM
that evening, Boukreev finally reached Fischer, who by then was dead.

Miraculously,
despite losing a glove and being given up for dead twice, Weathers awoke from a
comatose state and “stumbled
back to camp, his arms extended like a mummy’s” (Wilkinson, 1996: 45) at
about 4:30 PM on May 11. On Monday, May
13, he was taken off the mountain with Makalu Gau, in one of the highest
helicopter rescues ever tried.
Miraculously, both survived although Weathers had to have one arm
amputated.

By
the end, five climbers had died: 3 guides (Hall, Fischer, and Harris – although
it is not precisely clear where or how Harris died) and two clients (Namba and
Hansen). Three others on a different
expedition climbing from the Tibetan side of the mountain also died during the
storm. If not for Beidleman’s resourcefulness in finding
Camp Four and Boukreev’s strength in dragging people in, the number of deaths
would have been much higher. Within months, Hall’s adventure
climbing business had been sold, and some of the survivors had cut lucrative
movie and book deals (Mediati, 1996).
Two movies of the disaster, one for TV and the other for IMAX theaters,
were released in 1998. By 1998, both Boukreev and
Lopsang had been killed in separate Himalayan climbing accidents.

EXPLAINING
DISASTER ON EVEREST

Participants
and observers of this tragedy are still caught up in asking, “Did this have to
happen?” Though many have died
attempting Everest, few had as much experience, knowledge, and skill as Rob
Hall and Scott Fischer, begging the question “Why?” Blaming fingers have been pointed in every
conceivable direction, yet to date, little of this discussion has proven
particularly explanatory or helpful. In
this section, we discuss how sociostructural
shifts (one macro and one micro) combined with particular psychological
shifts to form this disaster. In
particular, we demonstrate how the commodification of high altitude climbing fostered ineffective
leadership structures. Together,
these factors created an environment that attracted less skilled and more self-inflated clients and increased
competition between climbing teams.
Finally, this constellation of structural and psychological factors led
to ineffective work group
cultures that were unable to cope with the unexpected changes in
Everest’s weather. Our points are summarized in Table 2.

-----------Table 2 About Here ----------

Macro
Structural Antecedents: The Large Scale Commercialization of Climbing. In the mid-1980’s, high
altitude climbing practices and attitudes rooted in 19th century
ideals of discipline, self-denial (Lasch, 1978), camaraderie, and romanticism
(Hansen, 1995) began to change dramatically.
The first hint that even the highest peaks on earth could be climbed by
well-to-do, less-skilled adventurers occurred in 1985 when a wealthy American
businessman and part-time climber, Dick Bass, decided to climb the highest summit on each of the seven
continents. His success opened the
possibility that “if you are fit enough and have the physiological makeup to
function at high altitudes—and enough training, Sherpas, guides, bottled
oxygen, and money ($65,000 being the norm) – Everest can be bagged”
(Wilkinson, 1996: 38).

As high altitude adventureclimbing started to become popular,
climber motivations and attitudes seemed to change as well; as climber and
guide, Doug Scott, noted in a 1993 interview:

This obsession with 8000-meter summits is
new, and the lengths to which people go to climb one. A lot of deaths now occur not by falling off,
or getting caught in a storm, but with climbers who climb themselves into the
ground, who die of exhaustion or mountain sickness such as cerebral edema or
pulmonary edema. A lot die now because
they’re so gung-ho, so obsessed with summits (O’Connell, 1993: 158).

This obsession with Everest and the
willingness for novices to take extreme risks to reach the top coincided with
climbing’s increasing market status and commodification as a sport. New technologies and distribution channels
provided an ever-growing supply of goods and gadgets – ultralight,
ergonomically designed gear, sophisticated guidance equipment, radio
communications, and climbing gyms made it possible for many more novices to try
the sport, easily exchanging economic capital for cultural capital (Bourdieu
& Wacquant, 1992). Many clients were
highly successful professionals from business, medicine, and law who had made
it to the top of their professions and were looking for a different venue in
which to stake their claim. High altitude adventure climbing in general, and
Everest in particular, was a popular choice.

According to Edmund Hillary, the result of this shift to adventure
climbing was that:

“Vast numbers (are) going up . . . People
seem to regard it as something to do” (Barton, 1996: 1).

“The Nepalese government has removed
all restrictions in the last couple of years. Virtually anybody can get
permission as long as they pay their money (about $US10,000 fee per climber) .
. . I have met a number of the parties (who) admitted they had no experience at
all. Many of the people who go on these
commercial operations don't do it for their love of the mountains. They do it
to get home and boast about it” (Conway, 1996).

“There
has been an erosion of mountaineering values.
It used to be a team effort.
Nowadays, it’s much too ‘everybody-for-himself.’ That can
get you killed” (Life, 1996: 41).

Although the total number of deaths on
Everest had risen steadily over the previous 20 years (from 1 in 1976 to 15 in 1996), the number
of successful summits had risen even faster (from 4 in 1976 to 98 in 1996) (Coburn, 1997). Given that the ratio of climbing
deaths/successful summits had actually decreased (from 25% to 15%), the argument could be made that
adventure climbing had actually made climbing safer. In fact, we believe that improvements in
equipment, technology, and climbing logistics probably had improved climbers’
chances of making it to the top of Everest; however, these enhancements did not
reduce the risks, especially under crisis conditions. In fact, we suggest that technical
improvements could not counterbalance the regressive work group cultures that
had emerged (because of changes in client dispositions and leader roles and
responsibilities) and that had made adventure climbing teams vulnerable in a
crisis. In our view, this was a disaster waiting to happen; similar disasters
on Everest in subsequent years (1997 and 1998) offer some confirmation for this
argument.

Micro-level
Structural Shifts: The ‘Selling Out’ of Climbing Leadership. According to a popular handbook of
mountaineering, Freedom of the Hills,
first published in 1960 and based on traditional climbing practices, the
traditional expedition leader was “responsible for the safety of the party and
success of the trip” (Peters, 1982: 414) as members climbed within their ability and knowledge. Good leadership depended greatly on the
climbing “party’s willingness to follow the leader’s judgments and decisions”
(Peters: 415). The leader was considered
to be “first among equals” who practiced an interdependent model of authority:
they accepted the need for hierarchical roles and individual contributions and
believed in the “usefulness of both authority and self-expression” (Kahn and
Kram, 1994: 30-31).

Consensus
decision making during high-altitude climbs was an essential feature of
effective leadership; leaders simply could not guide highly-skilled, motivated,
and experienced climbers unless they were willing to listen carefully, engage
in dialogue, and take climber ideas and concerns into full consideration. Chris Bonington (a Himalayan climber and
guide from the 1970’s) explained why he thought a consensus approach to leadership was so
important on high-altitude climbing teams:

It is not a democracy in the sense that
everything is put to a vote…But I would talk to a lot of people within the group so that I got a
general feel for the consensus, then make a plan, submit that plan to
the group, ask for comments, and if I got good suggestions I would incorporate
them into my plan. I would therefore work within the consensus but
would not have a formal vote at every stage of the expedition …as a
general trend, I think an
organization needs to work within the consensus of the group and the leader’s
role is to interpret the consensus.
However brilliant the leader’s plan, if the group doesn’t think it’s a
good plan, it’s not going to work. (O’Connell, 1993: 136).

In adventure climbing, the proliferation
of adventure travel companies run by ambitious entrepreneurs coincided with the
popularization of the sport. Because of
the low skill of many clients, high climbing fees, a competitive marketplace,
and the importance of getting climbers up and down the mountain safely, however, adventure climbing leaders and
guides were often forced to assume a more dependent model of authority towards
their clients. In other words,
they were forced to structure relationships either through “formalized relations” (Kahn and
Kram, 1994: 28), in the case of Rob Hall’s organization, or through charismatic
leadership, in the case of Scott Fischer’s organization. That clients were fundamentally dependent on them or their system made
the leaders’ role far more burdensome and complex.

Adventure Consultants, run by Rob Hall,
was one of the earliest and most successful of these ventures. Between 1990 and 1995, the company successfully had guided 39 clients,
each paying as much as $70,000 US, to the top of Everest. In his article in Outsidemagazine, Jon Krakauer noted that
Adventure Consultants “was responsible for three more ascents than had been
made in the first 20 years after Hillary’s inaugural climb” (Krakauer, 1996a:
52) – an impressive statistic.
According to a close friend, for Hall, “Everest was work, a major cash
flow generating exercise. The magic wasn’t in reaching the
summit any longer, but in helping clients reach their dream” (Conway, 1996).
Although his record of getting clients to the top was unparalleled during the
early 90’s, it is noteworthy that during a 1995
attempt, seven of his clients were forced to turn back before reaching the
summit — the first time his summit yield had been so low.

In
Hall’s organization, each party had a
specific role to play. The leader and guides had to organize the
climb (secure permission, get licensees), acclimate clients, take care of
anyone who got hurt, and plan out the logistics. The
Sherpas were given responsibility for implementing logistical aspects of the
climb (setting all the fixed ropes, for example), and doing most of the
physical labor (including carrying all the food, shelter, and oxygen). Clients were expected to follow the
guidelines and rules established by leaders and guides during acclimation and
the climb itself. Consistent with this
rule-based, conservative approach, Hall’s
organization emphasized safety. For
example, during the six weeks before ascending, clients would make three trips
above Base Camp as a group, “climbing about 2000 feet higher each time”
(Krakauer, 1996a: 53); this would help their bodies acclimatize to the
extremely thin air at the 29,000 foot summit.
In addition, Hall was strict in
requiring that the client group stay together during the ascent and turn around
should conditions deteriorate or get later than 2 PM in the day; the latter
condition assured that there would be sufficient time and light for a safe
return to Base Camp.

Beck
Weathers – following the rules almost killed him.

The other adventure travel business in
this story was Scott Fischer’s Mountain Madness of Seattle. Fischer had reached the top of Everest once before (without
supplementary oxygen) in four tries but
had never led a commercially guided trip on Everest. A well-known and highly-respected climber and
guide, Fischer was trying to establish
himself in the high altitude guiding business and had offered some of his
clients substantial discounts off the normal 65K fee (Wilkinson, 1996:
39). However, financially, Fischer was not doing particularly
well, and his expenses during this expedition had increased more than expected;
one client had not fully paid, oxygen use was greater than expected, and medical
expenses to care for health-stricken Sherpas were more than he had
anticipated. Fischer was quoted as
saying: “Man, I’m going to climb this mountain, and I’m going to come home with
ten thousand bucks if I’m lucky, and that’s just not okay” (Boukreev and DeWalt, 1997:
105). A business associate of
Fischer’s was quoted as saying, “I think the whole money issue was a huge stress” (Boukreev and
DeWalt, 1997: 105). If Fischer’s
expedition had not been successful, that is,
if few clients had reached the top or publicity had been negative, Mountain
Madness might have gone out of business.
The same was probably true for Hall’s Adventure Consultants, especially
given the previous year’s low yield.

Unlike Hall, Fischer’s philosophy of guiding was similar to his philosophy of
climbing: provide total support, but give clients maximum freedom in how
they make the climb. As one of his
guides, Neil Beidleman,
explained it, “We didn’t
want to take away from their adventure by taking them on a Disneyland ride”
(Wilkinson, 1996: 39). His philosophy seemed to differentiate his guiding
practices from Hall’s and made it attractive to clients looking
for greater autonomy and ‘authenticity’ in their climbing adventure.
Fischer relied on his personal enthusiasm and charisma to lead the team but
intensely disliked interpersonal conflict (for
example, he was unwilling to confront the non-paying client mentioned
previously) and often made decisions on the basis of loyalty and
friendship over good sense. For
example, he chose his youthful climbing
sirdar, Lopsang, on the basis of friendship, not experience. Also, during the acclimatization period he chose to escort a sick client and good
friend, Dale Kruse, down the mountain even though Fischer was “’burning
himself up’” in the process and could have assigned this chore
to a guide (Boukreev and DeWalt, 1997: 135).

In
conclusion, climbing leaders who were once experts at self-care, teamwork, and
consensus building, had reconstructed themselves as self-interested owners,
expert caregivers, and rule-oriented/charismatic leaders. Because of this shift
in leadership orientation, leaders and guides had to cope with more work and
greater complexity than if they had had a more interdependent, collaborative
leadership approach. Wilkinson (1996) argues that the reason Scott Fischer was too exhausted
to assist his clients on May 10 was because he had been helping sick clients
and Sherpas “up and down the mountain” during the acclimation period, including
rest days, prior to the final ascent (39). Likewise, during the ascent itself, Rob Hall
waited quite late in the day – more than an hour past the 2 PM return time –
for Hansen to reach the summit. Sensing
that Hansen was in desperate trouble, he also decided to stay with him through
the night, this despite the exhortations of others at Base Camp for him to save
himself. Yet Hall had urged Hansen to return to Everest in 1996 at a reduced
fee after he had come very close to reaching the summit the year before and, on
this attempt, may have
persuaded Hansen to continue his ascent when it appeared that he was ready to
drop out 3 or 4 hours after departing from Camp Four (Boukreev and DeWalt,
1997: 191; Krakauer, 1977: 165).
As with Fisher, Hall’s role as adventure climbing leader included a caretaker role, especially for a
struggling client to whom he likely made a strong, personal commitment.

Do
clients have commitments to each other?
Selfish babies

Micro-level
Structural Shifts: Rising Client Inexperience. Prior to the rise of adventure climbing in the
1980’s, mountaineering was the province of skilled individuals with the right
disposition. Typically, expedition
leaders looked for young men with considerable skill and experience on snow and
ice at high altitudes. John Hunt, leader of the first successful
expedition to Everest climb in 1953, looked for men with a particular
temperament as well – men who were committed to the team and its mission, not just
to their own personal agenda:

There was the need to be sure
that each one of the party really wanted to get to the top. This desire must be both individual and
collective, for such are the exigencies of Everest that any one of us might be
called upon to make this attempt; I was looking for the “Excelsio” spirit in
every member of the team. In contrast to
this, Everest also demands
a quite unusual degree of selflessness and patience. The final climb to the top must, by common
consent among us, be an entirely impersonal choice, and for those not chosen
for it, there might be thankless, even
frustrating jobs during the most critical phase of the expedition. This was certainly asking a good deal of
prospective members of the team;
temperaments are put to great and prolonged strain during big
expeditions. But one man can endanger
the unity and spirit of a whole party, and unity on Everest would be
all-important (Hunt, 1953: 24-25; underlining added).

By May of 1996,
the climbing field had become largely commodified, contested, and
uncertain. Climbers had become
differentiated into sellers and buyers, manufacturers and retailers, guides and
clients.
Before the field became so popular, climbing required an enormous amount of
knowledge and skill: the mountaineer
needed to be a weatherman, engineer, athlete, nutritionist, medical doctor, geologist,
and handyman all rolled into one.
Climbing necessarily emphasized self-sufficiency and teamwork; climbers
needed to be able to look after themselves and each other. Whereas climbers
previously had been highly skilled both individually and as a collective, now
as clients they often were inexperienced and unskilled; yet they demanded the same autonomy
accorded skilled players without the responsibility to the team or to each
other.

Psychological
Antecedents. Because of the structural
shifts noted above, the psychological makeup of climbers (particularly clients)
changed; the new
commodified field of climbing now attracted a very different type of
practitioner than before, ones more narcissistically crippled. We
propose that adventure climbing clients had become not only less skilled than
their predecessors, but also more
self-inflated – perhaps as a compensatory device. We offer the following pieces of evidence in
support of this claim:

·Denial
of limitations and vulnerabilities: As Scott and Hillary noted, many
inexperienced adventure climbers were driving themselves to reach the top of
Everest (and other high altitude peaks) at any cost and by any means. An impulsive, “go-it alone” attitude had replaced the patience, concern for
planning, and emphasis on camaraderie of earlier climbing expeditions. For many adventure climbers, Everest was often the final
and most important step in their quest to become members of an exclusive club
of climbers who had reached the highest peaks on all seven continents. For several on this expedition, the May ’96
climb was their second or third attempt at reaching the top of Everest. Consistent with this denial of limitations was the strong sense of entitlement
that some high paying clients seemed to express.According to Krakauer, some clients, “having paid
princely sums to be escorted up Everest,” had then sued their guides “after the
summit eluded them” (1996:51). This
occurred even when, for reasons of safety, the guiding company had never
guaranteed a successful ascent.2

On this expedition, for example, we read of Gammelgaard telling
Beidleman, “I don’t need a guide, especially not you” (Boukreev and DeWalt,
1997: 115). Further, we read of
Boukreev’s concerns that clients, in their efforts to gain altitude during the
acclimatization phase, went without rest and recuperation (Boukreev and DeWalt,
1997: 101). For example, he pointed out
that instead of resting, Pittman had made a quick visit with friends in the
town of Pheriche the weekend before the final summit. Although an extended rest might have been
“beneficial,” according to Boukreev, he felt that her “quick up and down…had
cost her a great deal of energy (Boukreev and DeWalt, 1997: 128). Even Weathers, almost
blind, standing alone atop the South Col on the morning of the ascent, had
spoken to Hall about trying to “boogie
on up after everybody else” once his vision started to clear (Krakauer,
1997: 190). As if climbing Everest with full vision were not
challenging enough!

Indeed, according to Boukreev, in the client
system, “people were willing to pay a cash price for the opportunity (to climb
Everest) but not a physical price for preparedness” (Boukreev and DeWalt, 1997:
93). As self-inflated clients
paying large fees, perhaps they felt ready and able without having to pay a
physical price. Indeed, the client system itself seemed to reinforce this notion as
exemplified by Fischer’s
decision to expedite the journey to Base Camp by flying clients to a point more
elevated and closer to Everest – in violation of the maxim, “start below
3040 meters and walk up, slowly” (Boukreev and DeWalt, 1997: 61).

·Difficulty
in forming close relationships on the team: In describing how the team forged friendships
during the preparation stage of the climb, John Hunt described how his expedition team became
friends during their long trek to Everest:

We followed a leisurely routine.
We would rise at 5:30 A.M. with the aid of a cup of tea. The whole caravan would be on the move soon
after 6 A.M…The walks between stages and our leisure hours in camp worked
wonders in our mutual relationship.
Favorable first impressions warmed into firm friendships; we quickly
learned to appreciate one another, comparing our very varied backgrounds and
interests, discussing common or contrasting experiences – usually in the sphere
of climbing mountains (Hunt, 1954: 68).

By contrast, Krakauer
described the difficulty his client group had in forming close relations during
the preparation phase prior to the May 10 ascent:

…We
never became a team. Instead we were a
bunch of individuals who liked each other to a certain degree and got along
well enough, but we never had this feeling that we were all in it
together. Part of it was that we didn’t
do enough of the actual work: Sherpas set up camp, Sherpas did the
cooking. We didn’t have to cooperate and
work out who was going to haul this load or who was going to cook or do the
dishes or chop the ice for water. Which
contributed to the fact that we never coalesced as a team, which in turn contributed
to the tragedy: We were all in it for ourselves when we should have been in it
for each other

… I mean, look at my role in the death
of Andy Harris, the young New Zealand guide on our team. There is no way that I should ever have left
him on the mountain.3[WMD1] I should have
recognized
that he was hypoxic and in trouble…if I
had been on Everest with six or seven friends instead of climbing as a client
on a guided trip, I never would have descended to my tent and gone off to sleep
without accounting for each of my partners.
It is shameful and inexcusable no matter what (from “False Summit,” Outside,
May 1997, pp. 61-62).

·At
the center of attention:In sharp contrast to earlier climbers, adventure climbing clients often seemed willing
to be pampered and catered to by guides and Sherpas. The extreme case in this regard was Pittman’s use of a Sherpa to “roll up her
sleeping bag every morning and pack her rucksack for her” (Krakauer, 1997:
117) as well as her use of Lopsang to short rope her up the mountain on May
10. Satellite
hookups and instant media coverage also helped to put this expedition at the
center of a large, admiring audience with Pittman[at its centre] posting regularly on NBC
Interactive, Bromet interviewing Fischer almost daily for Outside Online, and
Krakauer collecting notes for his forthcoming article in Outside magazine.

·Episodes
of narcissistic rage:
We can identify at least two [three?] clear examples
where clients felt rage at their climbing organizations. In both instances, clients felt slighted
because the climbing experts and leaders, Hall and Fischer in this case, would
not allow them to do what they felt entitled to do based on the competencies they
believed they had. The first occurred
when Krakauer was forced to wait 90 minutes for the rest of his team at the
Balcony early on May 10. He commented:

I was peeved over wasting so much time and falling behind everybody
else. But I understood Hall’s rationale
(for waiting for the rest of the clients to catch up) so I kept quiet and played the part of obedient client. To my mind, the rewards of climbing come from
its emphasis on self-reliance, on making critical decisions, and dealing with
the consequences. When you become a
client, I discovered that you give all that up. For safety’s sake, the guide always calls the
shots. (Krakauer, 1996a: 58)

In a different example, client, Lena
Gammelgaard, spoke of how at first, Scott Fischer had told her that she could
climb Everest on her own without oxygen (as Boukreev and Lopsang had been
allowed to do). Later, however, when he
reversed his decision explaining to her that other climbers might need her
help, she wrote in her diary:

How stupid that man (Scott Fischer)
is. I’m angry and hate to be subordinate
to his final decision. He’s the captain and has the last word, and I tolerate
the conditions that go for the group.
I’m angry and anger makes me strong.
Hard as bone and decisive but at the same time it makes me
careless. I’ve worked so long for this
and believed in Scott’s goodwill, and when he shows me his irresponsibility for
what he’s supported with his words, I become careless. This is not what I want. I feel humiliated because I in a certain way
am punished by helping my team members and thereby helping Scott (underlining
added). Now, it’s sure as hell the end
of being nice and kind, because I want to reach the top of that mountain.
(1996: 168)

Beck Weathers: what am I paying you for!

??????????

In conclusion, we attribute the drive of many adventure clients to reach the top of
Everest to an effort
at reparation of a damaged structure of self. From a Kohutian perspective, adventure climbing offered clients an opportunity to be at the center
of a doting world – both on the mountain and around the globe (a mirroring transference
function) – and to merge with a potent selfobject – in this case Everest
itself, a symbol of ambition, success, and exclusivity (an idealization
transference function).
Krakauer (1997) described a
climber’s willingness to endure the “toil, tedium, and suffering” of an Everest
expedition as a search for “something like a state of grace”

Alternative to high altitude
climbing - Ironman

(136). While Everest and other high
altitude peaks may have always served this purpose for climbers, self-inflationand lack of skill combined with
significant changes in leader roles and responsibilities discussed previously placed
this group of climbing teams at a much greater risk for disaster.

THE
IMPACT OF A COMMODIFIED SYSTEM

The
Emergence of Regressive Work Group Cultures.
To fully understand how structural changes led to the
emergence of team processes that contributed to this disaster, we turn to
Diamond’s (1991) work on regressive work group cultures. His model suggests that regression in groups
arises to cope with and contain anxiety and the fear of annihilation of self
(Diamond, 1991). By joining “in a powerful union with an omnipotent force,
unobtainably high, to surrender self for passive participation,” members can
feel “existence, well being, and wholeness” (Turquet, 1985: 76, based on the
work of Bion).

According to Diamond, regressive work
group cultures can take several forms. A
homogenized work group culture tends to be leaderless, fragmented,
undifferentiated, and incapable of work. An institutionalized work group attempts to
control anxiety through bureaucracy, hierarchy, and rigidly structured
systems. An autocratic work group
attempts to control anxiety through identification with a charismatic leader
endowed with “primitive, sadistic, and omnipotent qualities” (Diamond, 1991:
205). In both an institutionalized and
autocratic work group cultures, members may be able to do some work and engage
in limited learning.

In this case, changing climber
dispositions and leader roles and responsibilities contributed to the emergence of regressive work group cultures. Hall’s group had elements of an
institutionalized culture, held together through an emphasis on strict
adherence to the procedures and rules of his adventure climbing system. Fischer’s
group had elements of an autocratic culture, centered around the charismatic
persona and enthusiasm of Scott Fischer and his emphasis on “doing your own thing”, which, in practice,
climbers were often not allowed to do.
Consistent with Diamond’s model, both these cultures fostered client dependency on the
leader and contributed to the ambivalence that some members felt toward the
system (see Krakauer’s comments on the client system) and towards
the individual leader (see Gammelgaard’s comments towards Fischer’s oxygen
decision reversal). Competition for publicity and
“yield” – especially, given the severe economic strains on both
organizations – likely
increased the regressive nature of group cultures and client dependency
(Alderfer and Smith, 1982) 4.

From Faithful Servants to
Self-Interested Subcontractors: Equity Issues among Sherpas in a Commodified
System. From the first
British expedition to Everest in 1921 to the first successful ascent in 1953,
Western climbers had held their Sherpa porters and sirdars in high regard. Without their skill, perseverance, fortitude,
and loyalty under extreme, high altitude conditions, it is unlikely that any
climbing expedition would have ever reached the top of Everest. Although over the years, Western characterizations
of Sherpas have often had a distinctly “colonialist” tone to them, climber respect for and
dependence on Sherpa porters and guides have been indisputable. John Hunt, the expedition leader for the 1953
ascent, described their expedition Sherpas as:

…small, sturdy men with all the sterling qualities
of born mountaineers…cheerful, loyal, and courageous, possessed of exceptional
hardihood (Hunt, 1954: 60). It is of great importance to the success of any
Himalayan expedition that a very close understanding be built up between the
climbers and their Sherpas (Hunt, 1954: 62).

Over the years,
particularly with the advent of adventure climbing, the relationship between
Sherpa porters and guides and climbing parties has changed considerably. Even though Rob Hall referred to his climbing
sirdar, Ang Dorje, with “respect and obvious affection” (Krakauer, 1997: 106),
in adventure climbing, Sherpas had become subcontractors who were expected to carry gear and set fixed ropes
for wealthy, primarily North American and European, clients – many of whom
acted in a self-inflated way and showed little regard for Sherpa customs and
beliefs5. While some Sherpas might have felt degraded working as
subcontractors in this commodified system, others, like Lopsang, might have
seen it as an opportunity to benefit personally and professionally – hence,
perhaps, his decision to short-rope Pittman up Everest.

Although there is
evidence that Ang
and Lopsang had not worked well together prior to this expedition,
(Krakauer, 1997: 175), in the context of a more instrumental, contractual
relationship, it is not
surprising that equity issues arose between them. If part of Lopsang’s role as Fischer’s sirdar
was to collaborate with Ang to provide fixed rope assistance to both teams, why – in the context of a commodified system – should Ang have wanted
to do the work alone? Where once, as
collaborative and faithful servants, they may have tried to support the
expedition by selflessly
covering for one another, as Sherpas in a commodified context, the equitableness of contributions
(and fairness of rewards) had become increasingly more salient.

SUMMARY
AND CONCLUSION

In summary, the degenerating nature of work group
cultures and the abandonment of more traditional Sherpa-climber relations help
to explain why this disaster occurred. As we have stressed repeatedly, high altitude climbing is a
risky endeavor that demands patience, perseverance, diligence, and high amounts
of collaboration among climbers, leaders, guides, and Sherpas. Because
of the sociostructural and psychological changes that occurred, we argue, none of these capabilities
were developed during the acclimation period prior to the climb or during the
climb itself. When a severe storm
struck unexpectedly on May 10, there was insufficient flexibility or capability within the
system to respond competently. In
their roles as leaders, neither Fischer nor Hall was available to assist
struggling clients. For a variety of reasons, key Sherpas, on whom the system
of fixed-rope climbing depended, had also not fulfilled their roles. In
addition, as ambitious, self-inflated individuals, not only did clients ignore
the most fundamental rule for climbing Everest – the 2 PM turnaround rule6
– they were insufficiently skilled to cope with the storm on their own and not cohesive enough as a
group to assist one another.Only through the
resourcefulness, strength, and luck of two or three guides did many of them
manage to survive.

We attribute much of the emergence of
regressive work group cultures and breakdown in the Sherpa-based logistical
system to the structural changes in high altitude climbing that we discussed
previously. As a commodified endeavor,
high altitude climbing now attracted clients who were less skillful and more
self-inflated and was led by entrepreneurial expedition leaders who, as
business people in competition with one another, had to concern themselves with
both business objectives, such as the summit yield rate, as well as client
needs. As a consequence, clients had difficulty forming
collaborative relationships, leaders
assumed too much responsibility for expedition success, and Sherpa sirdars were
motivated less by the goals of the expedition than by the objectives of
their business leaders and their desire to build reputations as expedition
guides.

For these structural reasons, it may be
very difficult for adventure climbing expeditions ever to become “sophisticated
work groups.” In sophisticated or
intentional (Diamond, 1991) work groups, members define the task clearly,
desire to know as a basis for completing the task, cooperate through the skills
members bring to the group, use structures and roles in the service of the
task, tolerate and contain
conflict, and feel a collective
responsibility for how members interact with one another (Turquet, 1985:
74-75).

Instead of alleviating anxiety by regressing into basic assumption patterns,
leaders, staff, and team members on a “sophisticated” high altitude climbing
team are reflective and
purposeful, question leader-member relations, and “recognize and publicly test
fantasies and defensive reactions” (Diamond, 1991: 208), of which this
adventure was full. Members pay close
attention to process and emotional data (Hirschhorn, 1997) as a way to minimize
regressive tendencies, an aspect of group dynamics that is particularly
important on high risk ventures.

In conclusion, we are suggesting that when a human endeavor becomes a
prestigious commodity that people can buy into using whatever economic
and symbolic capital is at their disposal,
narcissism, competition, and regression are likely to be important facets of
the game.

From high altitude mountaineering to
“spirituality in business,” the commodification of high profile activities will
be perpetuated by (and help to perpetuate) narcissistic
illusions and fantasies of both buyers and sellers. By becoming acknowledged “experts” and celebrities on topics and
activities that are culturally meaningful (because they invoke images of
perfection and admiration), participants may be trying
to heal narcissistic wounds, some of which might derive from neglectful
parenting and others from cultural phenomena that breed alienation and despair.

However, systems
of psychic deliverance that are based on illusion yet require high-risk
activity are, in our view, at high risk of falling apart. Such was the case in the Everest
disaster.

If we are to better understand and deal
with narcissism and regression at the organizational level, we need to study
how these factors coalesce to give rise to regressive work group cultures and
their ego-defensive practices and
dynamics. For instance, re-examining
varied industry disasters in light of their structural antecedents might well
give us more insight into how the narcissistic factors identified by Kohut
(1971), Pauchant (1988), and Brown (1997) covary with changing industry conditions. Further developmental studies of dependency
dynamics, projective tendencies, and narcissistic factor configurations might
result in better specification of disaster type and size. It might also be worthwhile to study work
group processes that have been notably non-regressive in the face of disaster
(e.g., Johnson & Johnson’s handling of the Tylenol disaster); such studies
might yield improved understanding of how to manage regressive and narcissistic
proclivities. In an age of increasing uncertainty, competition, and media
spotlighting, an age where organizations are more capable of destruction than
ever, it seems to us that contextualized studies of narcissism, competition,
regression, and organizational disaster have never been more important. Hopefully we will see the emergence of such
studies in the near future.

Large numbers of commercial climbing
companies spring up, providing total climbing packages for about $US70,000 to
Everest. Robert Hall’s company, formed
in 1990, becomes one of the most successful operations.

Hall’s and Fischer’s groups begin
acclimatizing on lower parts of the mountain.

May 9

Hall’s and Fischer’s groups ascend to
Base Camp Four at bottom of South Col.
After resting, the two groups begin ascent to Everest summit close to
midnight. Makala Gau’s Taiwanese group
also departs (ahead of schedule), breaking their agreement not to ascend on
May 10.

Morning, May 10

Lopsang was noted ignoring necessary
rope fixing. At about 9 a.m. Ang
refuses to fix ropes by himself and Beidleman has to fill in for
Lopsang. By 11:30 a.m. there is still
a big queue because of this delay.

Midday, May 10

Krakauer, Beidleman, Harris, and
Boukreev reach South Summit and wait for almost an hour for Sherpas to fix
ropes up Hillary Step. Ang arrives but
refuses to fix ropes again. The four
go ahead and do it. Lack of rope
creates 100 meter danger zone. A second bottleneck forms as four of Hall’s
clients decide to turn back.

Early afternoon, May 10

Boukreev, Krakauer, Harris, &
Beidleman reach summit and descend (except for Beidleman). 20 person queue waits to ascend. Krakauer (running out of oxygen) and Harris
wait for queue at the top of Hillary Step.
Fischer’s group ascends summit with Fischer dragging slowly behind;
Hall expresses disappointment at not getting more of his group to the top. Weather begins deteriorating.

Hall, frostbitten & hypothermic,
makes it to South Summit. Hansen had
slipped and died earlier. Hall is unable to move despite repeated urgings to
do so. Rescue attempt fails. Gau
brought down by Sherpas; Fischer left to die. Weathers wakes from comatose
state and arrives at Camp Four that afternoon.

Night, May 11

Hall is patched through to his pregnant
wife in New Zealand and says last goodbyes.

·Sherpas as
subcontractors – emergence of equity and contractual concerns

Notes

1Boukreev
strongly disagreed withKrakauer’s
assessment saying that in his twenty-five years of climbing, only once had he
ever used oxygen on an assault over 8000 meters (Boukreev and DeWalt, 1997:
245). He explained, “It is safer for me,
once acclimatized, to climb without oxygen in order to avoid the sudden loss of
acclimatization that occurs when supplementary oxygen supplies are depleted” (Boukreev
and DeWalt, 1997: 249).

2In early May when Madsen and Fox fell behind in their
acclimatization, they grew concerned that they would not be ready by the May 10
summit date and asked Fischer if they could try their ascent later. When Fischer indicated that there would be
only one summit attempt, they were quoted as saying, “Which was a big surprise
to everybody because we paid all this money and we only get one shot at it!..I
thought that’s not what the advertising said” (Boukreev and DeWalt, 1997: 132).

3In
a different incident when Krakauer was atop the Hillary Step and running out of
oxygen, he asked Harris to turn off his oxygen while he waited for a long cue
of climbers to ascend; mistakenly, Harris turned the valve the wrong way and
Krakauer’s oxygen was gone before he realized what had happened. Only much later did Krakauer realize that
Harris “had slipped well beyond routine hypoxia” (Krakauer, 1996a: 60) and was
in real trouble as well.

4In our view, competition between the climbing organizations
exacerbated the clients’ already strong preoccupation with themselves (and
their own climbing agenda) as well as the complexity of the task for Hall and
Fischer. In an interesting comment during a May 20 interview on the Outside magazine on-line chat group,
Krakauer said about this:

As soon as Rob gave me the
go-ahead (to leave the Balcony at 7:10 AM), I went and got as far up, passed as
many of Scott’s group as I had, and actually got right up behind Anatoli
(Boukreev)…So I think there was a little tension between Scott’s group and our
group – just sort of who was going to get ahead. Everyone knew that you didn’t want to get
stuck at the back of the parade.
(Krakauer, 1996c: 3)

Intergroup competition
manifested itself in other ways as well such as Fischer’s silent consent in
allowing Lopsang to short rope Pittman (whose successful ascent was a potential
publicity windfall), and the failure of leaders to emphasize and guides/clients
to adhere to the 2 PM turnaround rule.

5For example, according to Krakauer (1997), Sherpas
“fundamentally disapproved of sex between unmarried couples on the divine
flanks of Sagarmatha” (the Sherpa name for Everest, the goddess of the sky)
(127). Yet when at Camp Two, a client
from Fischer’s team became sexually involved with a climber from a different
party, the “amorous assignations that took place in this woman’s tent were duly
noted by other members of her team, especially the Sherpas, who sat outside
pointing and snickering during the encounters” (127). According to Krakauer, the problem was not
that the couple had one encounter but that “she continued to sleep with her
paramour high on the mountain” (129) – this despite Lopsang’s pleas to Fischer
to forbid them from doing so. When
later, after an accident, a Sherpa (Ngawang Topche) died, many Sherpas
attributed it to Sagarmatha taking revenge
because of the client couple’s indiscretions.

6One
client was quoted as saying, “I remember standing there thinking, My oxygen is running out”…but at the
same time we were there and there weren’t sufficient impediments to stop us or
turn us back…(and) there were no cutoff times.
We never actually discussed cutoff times” (Wilkinson, 1996: 41).

1Boukreev
strongly disagreed withKrakauer’s
assessment saying that in his twenty-five years of climbing, only once had he
ever used oxygen on an assault over 8000 meters (Boukreev and DeWalt, 1997:
245). He explained, “It is safer for me,
once acclimatized, to climb without oxygen in order to avoid the sudden loss of
acclimatization that occurs when supplementary oxygen supplies are depleted” (Boukreev
and DeWalt, 1997: 249).

2In
early May when Madsen and Fox fell behind in their acclimatization, they grew
concerned that they would not be ready by the May 10 summit date and asked
Fischer if they could try their ascent later.
When Fischer indicated that there would be only one summit attempt, they
were quoted as saying, “Which was a big surprise to everybody because we paid
all this money and we only get one shot at it!..I thought that’s not what the
advertising said” (Boukreev and DeWalt, 1997: 132).

3In a
different incident when Krakauer was atop the Hillary Step and running out of
oxygen, he asked Harris to turn off his oxygen while he waited for a long cue
of climbers to ascend; mistakenly, Harris turned the valve the wrong way and
Krakauer’s oxygen was gone before he realized what had happened. Only much later did Krakauer realize that
Harris “had slipped well beyond routine hypoxia” (Krakauer, 1996a: 60) and was
in real trouble as well.

4In
our view, competition between the climbing organizations exacerbated the
clients’ already strong preoccupation with themselves (and their own climbing
agenda) as well as the complexity of the task for Hall and Fischer. In an
interesting comment during a May 20 interview on the Outside magazine on-line chat group, Krakauer said about this:

As soon as Rob gave me the
go-ahead (to leave the Balcony at 7:10 AM), I went and got as far up, passed as
many of Scott’s group as I had, and actually got right up behind Anatoli
(Boukreev)…So I think there was a little tension between Scott’s group and our
group – just sort of who was going to get ahead. Everyone knew that you didn’t want to get
stuck at the back of the parade.
(Krakauer, 1996c: 3)

Intergroup competition
manifested itself in other ways as well such as Fischer’s silent consent in
allowing Lopsang to short rope Pittman (whose successful ascent was a potential
publicity windfall), and the failure of leaders to emphasize and guides/clients
to adhere to the 2 PM turnaround rule.

5For
example, according to Krakauer (1997), Sherpas “fundamentally disapproved of
sex between unmarried couples on the divine flanks of Sagarmatha” (the Sherpa
name for Everest, the goddess of the sky) (127). Yet when at Camp Two, a client from Fischer’s
team became sexually involved with a climber from a different party, the
“amorous assignations that took place in this woman’s tent were duly noted by
other members of her team, especially the Sherpas, who sat outside pointing and
snickering during the encounters” (127).
According to Krakauer, the problem was not that the couple had one
encounter but that “she continued to sleep with her paramour high on the
mountain” (129) – this despite Lopsang’s pleas to Fischer to forbid them from
doing so. When later, after an accident,
a Sherpa (Ngawang Topche) died, many Sherpas attributed it to Sagarmatha taking
revenge because of the client couple’s
indiscretions.

6One client was quoted
as saying, “I remember standing there thinking, My oxygen is running out”…but at the same time we were there and
there weren’t sufficient impediments to stop us or turn us back…(and) there
were no cutoff times. We never actually
discussed cutoff times” (Wilkinson, 1996: 41).

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